X First Dates
by DREAMIRIS
Summary: Going on a first date is always a delightful experience. But is it the same for John Watson... Especially when it's technically not a first date? A story of how love can overcome the most permanent of losses, no matter how impossible they may seem to be. John/Sherlock. Amnesia!Lock. Healing!John. 50 First Dates adaptation AU, but not crossover.
1. Day 1

**So, my excuse for accidently fic-ing this is... well, I was bored. Again.**

**So, 'X' here in the title is a variable because I don't know how many. But I'll try to make this atleast thirty. I'll try to update this atleast once a week. Any late updates, entirely the fault of my not-so-creative brain.**

**This is not really a one-shot, I am counting on the readers to tell me whether this is worth continuing :-)**

* * *

Day 1: 21st November, 2014

The Speedy's is a cafe on the ground floor of the apartment building number 221 owned by Mrs. Hudson. It is where she spends most of her time baking things or at scratch cards with Mr. Chaterjee. Sometimes, when Sherlock Holmes deigns to eat, usually Mrs. Hudson makes him some kind of breakfast that will not interfere with his violin playing or his general idea of clashing with the sulks he throws across. But mostly, he spends his time at Speedy's, observing people, honing his deductive skills. He believes that the science of deduction is an ongoing process which can never be perfectly mastered, and since he has nothing productive to do, he sits and he observes.

And if anyone opened up his skull, and peeped into the mental processes of Sherlock's brain, they would see that the connections he makes is incredibly, _incredibly_ obvious.

For example: the man who just entered is dripping wet, and his hair is wet too. That means it must be raining outside.

Sherlock cranes his neck to look outside, and looks pleased with his deduction. It is raining indeed.

But there have been some changes over at 221. For example, the skull is no longer there, Sherlock has stopped solving crimes with his blogger, and Mrs. Hudson isn't there in the flat anymore, or anywhere in the world. Otherwise Sherlock wouldn't have to come down for his breakfast ritual. And now, Sherlock's brother owns apartment building number 221, believing that if there's anything that can make Sherlock feel at home, it's 221B.

Sherlock's eyes track upwards. The man who had been dripping wet comes down and sits across him at _his _table, to his annoyance. But he doesn't say anything, thinking that he must be polite and blow the man off, lest he should interfere with his mental processes.

"It's raining cats and dogs, isn't it?" the man says, taking his jacket off and setting it on the chair next to him.

"No," Sherlock steeples his fingers below his chin, "It's raining water, otherwise you wouldn't be dripping wet."

The blond man watches him with a sadness Sherlock has never seen before. Not that Sherlock had ever known sadness. The corners of his lips quirk and he swallows. Sherlock congratulates himself for having examined such minute details, and decides that he will improve much more tomorrow. "John."

He looks at the man's hand that he extends to him. John has his eyes fixed into Sherlock's and frankly he finds it disturbing to find himself at the pinpoint of John's intense scrutiny. Sherlock wonders whether this John man is superior to him in terms of deduction. In that case, he must extend his hand too, so that he can learn from him without ever having to admit it that he is his apprentice, "I am Sherlock."

If anyone cared to reach into John's chest, they would've found his heart dying in two uneven pieces with a million smaller shards lying around it. Nevertheless, John swallows. "It's a beautiful name," he blurts out without thinking.

Sherlock's eyes light up in excitement at his name being called 'beautiful', like the way John has known his eyes lighting up whenever he finds a corpse. Well, that was appropriate anyway. John was a corpse after all. But he takes Sherlock's hands in his, feeling the familiar contours against his skin. Sherlock giggles like a child at the tickling sensation, and John smiles back, his heart filling with a feeling that he likes but it is too overwhelming. He doesn't have a label to it. John wishes nothing more but to raise Sherlock's hands and kiss them, like he used to, countless times before, together in bed during those lazy Sunday mornings, the mornings which were slow, honey-like and warm lips against lips, and then skin and hands travelling over one another, promising a lifetime together.

"It is," John agrees hoarsely, every second looking into Sherlock's eyes feeling like a blade pressed against his shoulder, right where he had been hit by the bullet, and then slowly trickling blood, "As are your eyes."

Sherlock's hands wrap around his slowly as he explores his palms too, but his eyes are not soft and hazy with love. They're intrigued, and they look like they're trying to assess whether John was of any value or not. Finally they relax, and a lazy, unreal smile spreads across his cheeks with a small flush of colour. He looks down and mutters, "Thank you," bashfully, like the way he always used to do when his guards were down, or when they had been dissolved by alcohol. Although, there are no guards left now, are there?

John knows he is a masochist sometimes, so he simply says, "You're welcome." His heart breaks when he sees how perfectly his smaller fingers fit in the spaces between Sherlock's fingers.

They don't see the waitress looking at them and muttering, "fags".

"You have nice eyes too," Sherlock comments back, "Blue... like the ocean. I've always loved the ocean... so grand and endless, and I have no idea why I am telling you this," he finishes with a giggle.

John forces himself to order something for both of them, lest he be caught with tears in his eyes, something that Sherlock's eyes cannot miss even in this state, "You can tell me... You've always loved the ocean, you say?"

Sherlock thinks hard, uncertainty flickering over his face, "Now that I think about it... I don't know. I _just_ said it..."

"Yeah, happens to me too," says he, wishing if Sherlock could say 'I love you' to him _just_ like that too, "So... are you single?"

Sherlock tries to remember, and then he replies with a "yes, are you?"

John responds with a yes too. And then, against every single nerve in his body, he asks him out. Sherlock's incredulity is as clear as crystal on his face. John looks down at his neck. He has worn the scarf the wrong way.

"That's very fast," Sherlock replies, this time not letting go of John's hand, and making drenched fireworks exploding in John's stomach, "We've only met for fifteen minutes."

John tries to undo that sentence. He did not hear that. He wishes he hadn't heard that. But he has and the more he tries to forget it, the stronger it embeds itself into his mind.

"Yes, I know," he tries to keep his voice steady, although he doubts if Sherlock will be able to tell the difference at all, "I'm just asking you for another date."

This time Sherlock blushes again. The Sherlock Holmes that John knew never blushed this freely, and John is at a loss to understand how Sherlock could control such an involuntary reaction.

Sherlock orders a cappuccino, stuttering before he can say the name properly. John orders black coffee with no sugar. Ever the intrigued one, Sherlock sips from John's cup of coffee, wondering how coffee tastes without sugar.

"_That _is a tragedy of epic proportions!" Sherlock exclaims, the drama queen in him still not gone, "It's so bitter!"

"I like my coffee to taste like coffee," John replied, "Yours is worse. How do you taste the coffee over all of the sugar?"

"We can pretend that this is a date," Sherlock suggests, forgetting their earlier conversation like it has never happened, a tongue darting out and licking the froth away. John shifts very slightly in his seat, remembering the feel of those lips and that tongue. "What do people do on dates?"

"I'm not pretending," John speaks, willing his voice to never break down, not in front of the love of his life at least, "I thought I was on a real date with you."

"Well..." Sherlock looks away, a little smile adorning his pink lips, "I guess that could work out, but you'll need to walk me through it," he admits sheepishly, "what day was it again?"

"Erm," John checks his watch, "21st August, 2014."

Sherlock frowns, "So, it rains this heavily in August, does it?"

"Yeah," John shrugs, "but it's worse in November."

Sherlock rolls his eyes, much like the previous Sherlock and John's heart gives a bitter twinge at that, "Are we really talking about weather on our _date_, John?"

"What would you like to talk about?" says he with an inviting smile.

"You?" he suggests weakly, "because I'm sure I'll come up with something about myself as we go."

John manages a fake laugh at that, something that Sherlock is no longer able to tell. The overwhelming feeling is there in his chest again, and it rises like bile in his throat, mixing horribly with the sandwich that he gulps down to keep himself from throwing up. It is against the rules of biology, he knows that the more he'll eat, the more he's going to throw up later, but if Sherlock can defy them, why not he?

"I'm a doctor. I treat people when they're sick."

"Sick? As in germs?" Sherlock asks in genuine confusion, and John has to stop himself from punching Sherlock in the face in the hope that his brains get all mixed up and that he becomes the cold piece of brilliance who was a little too ticklish in his right knee and who kissed like he wanted to steal every breath from John and deny him a chance to live.

"Yes, but because I went to the army, I was usually treating more injuries than germs."

"Hmm..." Sherlock stares into a distance infinite miles away from where John is sitting now, "What sort of person becomes a doctor only to go to the army? Why would a healer go to war?"

It's almost his breaking point, and John excuses himself to go to the lavatory. Sherlock innocently allows him to.

Once the door is securely bolted behind him, once the world is against him, behind the barrier of the four walls, John tries to cry. Tears don't come to him. They simply blur his vision, but they don't make their descent down his cheeks. He looks at his watch. It is November the 21st, but the watch is still stuck on 21st August, 2014, choosing not to move on, like him, or like Sherlock, like a sickening iteration of days and routines over and over again, much like his life before Sherlock.

_Why would a healer go to war?_

Sherlock had been the first one to discover the answer. That it was imprinted deep in his bones, beneath the knotted, rising flesh of his bullet wound, where the bone still holds the scrape marks, the shatter line, the physical memory of breaking and bleeding into foreign sand.

But now, it's just Sherlock remaining, not Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective.

He puts on his most charming smile, and saunters comfortably out of the washroom. Sherlock is looking at him excitedly like a child, tucking into his meal and talking with food in his mouth, and it is an altogether different scene to watch. He had never thought he would get to see it.

Their conversation carries and flows normally as it breaks the remaining pieces of John's broken heart to see Sherlock's brilliant mind lying waste like that, and for the first time, it feels like Sherlock is just as ordinary man.

Nothing like Sherlock Holmes, who could kiss to kill, but a different man who was afraid to open his mouth to him. Because when this Sherlock kisses him, it's still slow, it's still sweet and honey-like with the toe-curling sensation as he wraps his arm around John's shoulders, as they stand in the rain and Sherlock's hands travel all over his back like he is a drowning man, it's not the same. It's intuitive, and not with the single-minded intensity that Sherlock Holmes possessed.

Maybe because Sherlock and Sherlock _Holmes_ were two different people.

Or maybe because John has changed. At this moment, anything is possible.

But one thing is certain. It is nothing like how Sherlock Holmes kissed John. But nevertheless, even if it hurts him, John kisses back, slowly plying his mouth open. Sherlock seems to hesitate, but then he opens his mouth against John's, touching his tongue with his tentatively, still experimenting as his grip on John becomes stronger. He doesn't taste of cigarette anymore. He tastes of nothingness and confusion and bewilderment.

"I'll call you tomorrow," Sherlock breaks away breathlessly and promises, and John nods, knowing fully well that that tomorrow is never going to arrive. With a chaste goodbye kiss, he deletes Sherlock's number, and just stands near 221, waiting for a cab so that he can go home and mend his heart, only to have it broken the next day, over and over again.

He tries to cry, knowing that this way his tears would be run down by the rain, but they still don't come.

* * *

**So... guess what's wrong with Sherlock?**

**Did you notice something wrong with the date that John gave him when Sherlock casually asked him?**


	2. Day 2

**Things are much more complicated than they first appeared to be... can you guess now?**

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Day 2: 22nd November, 2014

The Speedy's is a cafe on the ground floor of the apartment building number 221 formerly owned by Mrs. Hudson. It is where she used to spend most of her time baking pies or at scratch cards with late Mr. Chatterjee. Sometimes, when Sherlock Holmes deigns to eat, usually Mrs. Hudson used to make him some kind of breakfast that will not interfere with his violin playing or his general idea of clashing with the sulks he throws across. But mostly, he spends his time at Speedy's, observing people, honing his deductive skills. He believes that the science of deduction is an ongoing process which can never be perfectly mastered, and since he has nothing productive to do, he sits and he observes.

And if anyone opened up his skull, and peeped into the mental processes of Sherlock's brain, they would see that the connections he makes is incredibly, _incredibly_ obvious.

For example: the man who just entered is British, caucasian, and his hair is light. That means he must be a blond.

Sherlock cranes his neck to look at him, and looks pleased with his deduction. He is a blond indeed.

But there have been some changes over at 221. For example, the skull is no longer there, Sherlock has stopped solving crimes with his blogger, and Mrs. Hudson isn't there in the flat anymore, or anywhere in the world. Otherwise Sherlock wouldn't have to come down for his breakfast ritual. And now, Sherlock's brother owns apartment building number 221, believing that if there's anything that can make Sherlock feel at home, it's 221B.

He looks away, and buries himself into_ Pride and Prejudice. _He cannot help but wonder why Mr. Darcy is such a blithering fool. And it is these moments when he gets bored with the angst in there that he tries his hand at the science of deduction. His eyes fall on the blond again, who sits two tables away from him, sipping a coffee, and then he turns to look at Sherlock.

Sherlock looks away at once, feeling the man's gaze on his skin. He shifts very slightly in his seat and goes back to his book. Enough with deductions for a moment. But he cannot shake the uncomfortable feeling that somehow, that man is thinking about him.

And then, he lifts his head from the book and finds the man looking at him with an expectant face, "Hey, erm... I'm John. Could you help me? I'm new to London."

Sherlock looks at him skeptically, and then around him. There are many people, and why is he disturbing only him? "I'm sorry, you should go to someone else, I can't spare the time."

And with that, Sherlock rises and walks out promptly out of Speedy's, leaving John bemused instead of heartbroken. Angelo, who has left his restaurant to his nephew just so that he can take care of Sherlock, goes over to John and sits down, nodding his head sympathetically.

"Does he remember even you?" John croaks. Angelo shakes his head.

"Only his brother and his parents, and that too what they were like when Sherlock was nine. They got one of their nephews who looks a lot like Mr. Mycroft Holmes did when he was sixteen. Mrs. Holmes stays with him, while pretending to be his grandma. They're just thankful that she looks a lot like her mother."

"Mycroft told you that?"

"Yeah," Angelo pats his back, "He visits twice a day. Sherlock thinks he is his Uncle Rudy..."

John swallows, remembering that Uncle Rudy was the crossdresser, and doesn't bother to think what Mycroft has to go through now, dressing up like a woman in front of Sherlock to make it look believable, "Doesn't he think why he is like that, all... grown up and six feet even when he is nine? I mean... he is still clever, right?"

Then, John remembers that they had told Sherlock that he had some sort of syndrome which had made his body shoot up over night. But he can't wonder how Sherlock, of all people believed it. Angelo looks at his face, and understands his qualms.

"He has the brain of a nine-year-old... I mean what he was like when he was nine. That's why he didn't bother with the..." Angelo clasps his hands together, in an attempt to show what Sherlock and John had been doing in the cafe the previous day, "you know..."

John absently trails his fingers over his hands, where they had been entangled with Sherlock's the previous day. He wonders what magic he had done yesterday to have got to kiss Sherlock right on the first date. But then he remembers, having the brain of a nine-year-old, Sherlock doesn't have much restrain over his actions or his feelings like an adult would. He does not _think _through, the one thing which had gained him international fame and reputation had been snatched away from him.

"John..." Angelo puts his hand on John's shoulder, "If Mr. Mycroft Holmes sees you here..."

"I know, I know," he swallows bitterly, wondering why _he _was the only one to be left out of Sherlock's life. But then, Sherlock wouldn't understand, would he? He was just a child now. An actual onslaught of emotions is too much for John to handle and he rises abruptly and leaves. He knows Mycroft is trying to save him from his heartbreak, and that it is in both of their best interests to forget each other. Hell, Sherlock had even forgotten him.

He glances at his watch still stuck on 21st August, 2014. And probably so is Sherlock's. The watches haven't moved on.

He would do anything to escape into a god-to-honest meltdown. Sometimes, he hates himself for being a man, a British ex-soldier. He hates the fact that he is a soldier and that it is hard, such things, and that he can't get them out and off his chest when they should.

And then he remembers that if it weren't for these qualities, Sherlock would never even had probably risked a second glance in his direction.

* * *

_21st August, 2014_

_"I mean, like, seriously, John!" Sherlock laughs, drawing him closer, "One morning round, please!"_

_"Sherlock, I just showered!" John tries to shove him away, instead ending under Sherlock like a heap of skin and bones and laughter, "And anyway, it's bad luck for the bride to see the groom before the wedding!"_

_"So," Sherlock adopts an expression of deep thought, "I am the groom and you are the bride, so you're going to walk the aisle for me," he winks at him, but in a moment of weakness, John overturns them so that he is on top, "No! I am the groom and you're the bride, and you're gonna walk the aisle for me because you've got a father to walk you, haven't you?"_

_"Shut up!" Sherlock kisses him playfully, and then takes advantage of John's weakness to turn them over again, "I am the groom because I am taller!"_

_"I am the groom because I am older!"_

_"My name starts with 'H'."_

_"Seriously, Sherlock?!" John laughs and then pulls him closer, drawing the sheets over them as they press together, chest to chest, forehead to forehead, "We're gonna start fighting since _before_ we get married?!"_

_"Yup," Sherlock replies, popping the 'p' like always, and then all of a sudden, he comes close and licks the toothpaste off the corner of John's lips. John responds by sliding his hand over the tell-tale bulge between Sherlock's pyjama pants, "Okay. One_ very_ quick shag."_

_"Wait," Sherlock joins their foreheads together, and smiles serenely, "I love you - "_

_To his surprise, John turns him over, and grins maliciously, "I know, drama queen."_

_Sherlock rolls his eyes, even as he stifles the moan tearing itself from his lips, "I'm not the drama queen, John. I'm the dancing queen."_

_John snorts against his skin, sending goosebumps down his spine as he chases every bit of skin revealing under Sherlock's shirt with an open-mouthed kiss._

* * *

_Greg is John's best man at the wedding, while Sherlock has elected Mrs. Hudson as the bridesmaid. They were supposed to arrive an hour ago, but now the guests were waiting, and to John's unconcealed surprise, Greg is more worried than John._

_"Why aren't they here?" Greg is impatient, and for the first time, John sees him so jittery, "They should've been here an hour ago - "_

_"Seriously, Greg!" John is the one calming him down instead of the other way instead, "Maybe Sherlock got kicked out, you know, for making the driver go nuts," he tries to snort at his own joke, but he finds that he can't. Even he is a little nervous. Sherlock is never late for anything. He is always just on time. It just doesn't fit with his OCD._

_"You got them the address right, didn't you?!"_

_"Sherlock had it carved on his beloved skull, Greg, seriously, maybe it's just the traffic!"_

_"You two live together, so you should've come together!" he hisses, "I don't know, John... Sherlock, he's always on time, or mostly earlier. He's never late."_

_"Yeah, well... I told him I would leave when he does, but one of his clients had called him. Said it was at least an 8 and he told me that he would arrive a little late."_

_"Typical Sherlock," Greg mutters, "Solving cases before the wedding."_

_"Yeah..." John wonders what is taking Sherlock so long._

_It doesn't take long for Mycroft's call to arrive, "John," he actually can hear him swallow something dry and painful down his throat, "There's been an accident."_

_It's all that the guests need to know that there won't be any wedding taking place that day. Harry Watson is the first one to rise and run away to the free bar, choosing alcohol over her shocked brother._

_John Watson did not know that it really was bad luck for the bride to see the groom before the wedding._

* * *

John looks at a distance to see a black car approaching and coming to a stop near him. The door opens, and there is Mycroft Holmes sitting in the driver's seat, dressed like a woman, obviously having no chauffeur to witness such a scene. Somehow, the scene isn't as funny as it should be. The windows are tinted, so it's only John who can see him in such a condition. He wonders how many lives Sherlock's head and that accident has affected, and suddenly, he sees beyond the abject misery that he feels.

"Get in John," he says, feeling miserable at having to face his brother's ex-fiance in such a state, "I have fifteen minutes to answer whatever it is that you have. After that, you must walk out of Sherlock's life."

* * *

**Review?**


	3. You're Not The Only One Who's Affected

**This is a bonus chapter, with a little peek into what is happening inside 221B at the moment, and of course, how Mycroft is dealing with it.**

**Yes, I know I said I'd update at least once a week but I got fixed on my other WIPs.**

* * *

John looks at a distance to see a black car approaching and coming to a stop near him. The door opens, and there is Mycroft Holmes sitting in the driver's seat, dressed like a woman, obviously having no chauffeur to witness such a scene. Somehow, the scene isn't as funny as it should be. The windows are tinted, so it's only John who can see him in such a condition. He wonders how many lives Sherlock's head and that accident has affected, and suddenly, he sees beyond the abject misery that he feels.

"Get in John," he says, feeling miserable at having to face his brother's ex-fiance in such a state, "I have fifteen minutes to answer whatever it is that you have. After that, you must walk out of Sherlock's life."

John looks down at his sneakers, and then slips inside smoothly, "He thinks you're... Uncle Rudy—"

"Laugh all you like, John," Mycroft snaps, putting on some lipstick shoddily on his thin, firmly set lips while his brows burn with shame, and there's something else, guilt. Survivor's guilt. John knows that although Mycroft is miles ahead of him at being the master of emotional paralysis, the little ways in which he ensures that his brother thinks that everything around him is normal and in August of 1986 speaks another tale.

"Don't be ridiculous..." John looks away, his heartbeat slowing down for a reason he doesn't understand. Is it because he finds peace that he is not the only one who is in the all-consuming pain? Or is it because he is not the one who has to watch the grown-up, thirty seven year old Sherlock Holmes crumbling everyday and laughing at small, insignificant things that would never have come out of his otherwise controlled mouth? He is just glad that Mrs. Hudson isn't here anymore to watch him downgraded from the brain of the World's only consulting detective to that of the child who has not even struck his puberty, and who is still free to physical touch and kissing. Suddenly John begins wondering with who Sherlock's first kiss might have been.

"What stage is it? The Carl Powers—"

"Carl Powers came in 1989, thankfully. Sherlock is still fixed on 1986."

"So... Redbeard—?"

"He comes a month later. Sherlock is still... well, happy," Mycroft fixes his wig, and looks at his pocket-watch resting on his regular clothes on the backseat, as John is consumed by waves of overpowering silence.

And then suddenly, Mycroft's words strike him, and he counters back defensively, "Sherlock was very happy with me."

But Mycroft only laughs sarcastically at that, and John's eyes narrow, and he looks away, "This isn't right... Yesterday, he asked me if it rains in August. I said yes, and he looked doubtful. I bet he even checked up books. What's going to happen when December comes around and it starts snowing? What will you tell him then, that it snows in August?!"

But Mycroft pretends not to listen to him. He simply looks away, avoiding John's eyes and wallowing in self-hatred that he had come out of the accident with only a broken arm and few broken ribs while his own brother had lost everything and yet, he remains blissfully ignorant of it. He avoids answering John's questions like he always has done in the past. Instead of the deep ache in his chest and the loneliness and the need to see Sherlock in front of him that is sometimes too much, even if it meant being invisible to the rest of the world, there is now this obtuse irritation that Mycroft is behaving so childishly.

"What's going to happen when he wakes up thirty years from now, and demands to know how his face has aged over the night, or how his hair has become grey? Are you going to blame that on thyroid malfunction too... or—or something as absurd as progeria—?"

"Believe me, John," Mycroft growls, his jaw muscles working furiously as he turns to look at John with guilt in his eyes, and more than that, with disbelief that John would think that he would not cover that, "I worry about that. Every day of my life."

John cannot help but think for one extremely heartless, selfish moment that Mycroft should've been the one instead of Sherlock.

"Now if you'll excuse me, John," Mycroft drapes a shawl around himself, and hides his face from the rest of the world. For a split second, John is reminded of the aura of power he had felt around him when he met him for the first time, the cool nonchalance, the dominating Iceman as opposed to the brother who is trying to hide himself from the people who were looking around at him. He looks at Mycroft's right hand.

His umbrella is missing.

Mycroft turns around, and for one second, his mask falls, "If it helps anyway, you should come. Preferably now."

John swallows. A week's notice might have been better. He isn't ready to see Sherlock in 221B, a Sherlock he has never known before. But then, he is a masochist, and he has always wondered about Sherlock's childhood. This is the closest he can come to it.

Not being able to speak, he nods smartly, and Mycroft assumes a perfectly faux-cheerful face. Despite it, and despite the amount of makeup on his middle-aged face, John can still make out the tired lines and the falsehood in them. Although he doubts if Sherlock can do that too.

"Wish me Happy Birthday, John," says he resignedly, and enters the flat with John limping behind him.

John feels like he has arrived in another world, maybe a 21st century-proofed version of 221B Baker Street. There's no headphones on the bovine skull, no laptop, no television, no sophisticated science equipment, or as he suspects, no body parts in the fridge... nothing whatsoever to indicate that this is 2014, or the flat that John had come to look at with Sherlock back when he had been invalided home.

Sherlock is curled up in his armchair in his night pyjamas, doing crossword puzzles in the daily newspaper while a gangly teen with freckles and a rounded stomach, who John suspects is playing teenage Mycroft, is taunting him for being so stupid to not know the meaning of "connoisseur". For a second, John wants to push that boy away, and shield Sherlock from him, like he has always done, like he has always stood up for him in the Yard when Anderson and Donovan used to call him a freak or a psychopath.

Used to, John thinks, a hollow feeling blooming in his chest.

John now knows how Sherlock knows about so many big words that used to make him look them up in the dictionary when Sherlock wasn't around. He has always figured that Sherlock is a public school fella, going by the speech, but the accent and the words made him sound posh, undoubtedly the effect of the big brother in the house.

Despite everything in him, he looks down, and contracts and flexes his fingers, "You were a real tit back then."

Mrs. Holmes turns towards them, and Sherlock raises one eye at the newcomers, and looks down, looking almost uninterested. John hopes that Sherlock's eyes are going to rest on him too, but Mycroft's huge figure overshadows him as he steps forward, extending his arms towards his mother, "Madeleine!"

"Rudy! Happy Birthday!" She air-kisses him on the cheek, and the teenage Mycroft rolls his eyes. John still stands in the doorway, feeling as if he and Sherlock have embarked on a time machine and they have gone back into the past, except now Sherlock is a part of it. It strikes John that inside 221B, he is now no longer a part of Sherlock's life.

"Mike! Sherl! Come here and say Happy Birthday to your Uncle Rudy!"

John now sees why they have to be so careful when it came to recreating the past environment for Sherlock, because his love has his eyes open and darting in every direction. Well, nearly every. He hasn't spotted John yet, who has now retreated back to the shadows.

Sherlock doesn't react, but the teenage Mycroft gets up, and he looks like he is going to hug his "Uncle Rudy", but in the end, he ends up dipping his index finger into the cake that Mrs. Holmes has prepared for him.

"Why don't you get yourself a corset with that lovely dress, Uncle Rudy?" He remarks.

The corners of Sherlock's mouth twist upwards in amusement, and he too opens his mouth to say something too, like his big brother, but teenage Mycroft intervenes, "Don't even try, Sherlock. You're too stupid for it."

"Mycroft Holmes!" Their mother's voice rings out from the kitchen, scandalised, "He is your brother! I _will_ tell your mother about your disrespectful conduct, young man!"

For a split second, John's eyes travel to the Mycroft dressed as Uncle Rudy, looking almost shameful at the demonstration of his behaviour towards Sherlock when he was a teenager. Sherlock looks sad, genuinely sad and a little miffed at having being called idiot, but then almost immediately, he squeals with delight at having completing his crossword puzzle.

"Boys," Mycroft's voice rumbles, "No gifts for me?"

Teenage-Mycroft and Sherlock roll their eyes dramatically and identically. Mycroft tries to laugh good-humouredly and pats teenage-Mycroft's head. He simply shakes his head and goes and locks himself in Sherlock's room, a room where John has spent the best times of his life in.

"Well, then Rudy, come here and blow the candles out," she stops and looks at Sherlock expectantly, who John can tell is waiting for the request, his body frozen, taut with anticipation.

"Sherlock, do you want to blow the candles for Uncle Rudy?"

Sherlock has always been an overgrown child, John thinks. But he had no idea that one day, it might just come true. He shoots out of his chair and blows the candles. Mycroft is looking at his younger brother not with disdain or even pity. There's genuine happiness in his eyes to see his little brother so carefree, and little, in all wrong senses of the word, in sync with the sadness in him. John cannot imagine what Mycroft and Mrs. Holmes must be going through all day, having to see their own brother and son like that, childish and naive and lost in the bliss of his childhood, like a broken record repeating itself over and over.

A single tear manages to gather at the corner of his left eye. John tries to shed it, and in the end, he ends up only wiping it away. Sherlock is offered the cake that John suspects is made by Mrs. Holmes everyday for Uncle Rudy. Her tired eyes meet John's and they become surprised. Sherlock and Mycroft follow her gaze, and Sherlock looks at him weirdly, wondering what the person who was new to London was doing in their house. Mycroft seems to feel the tension that stiffens John's shoulders and reaches out to introduce him to them.

"This is erm..."

John replies, giving him a much-needed break from everything, "Hi, I'm John, I'm new in London," he turns to Sherlock who, John can see is immersed in the next interesting, _sufficiently_ distracting piece of puzzle in the newspaper. Sherlock always asked for new things, interesting things, and now here he is, doing the same thing, living the same day everyday. So strange are the ways of nature, so mysterious that if John bends down in front of Sherlock and tells him the ultimate truth that they were about to be married, Sherlock won't understand its worth, its meaning to John more than that of a pea.

Or maybe he will. He is Sherlock, after all. He found the Carl Powers case strange when he was a kid.

Mycroft's eyes narrow before he picks up the story effortlessly, "Yes... I've been showing Mr. John around. Charity work, isn't that right, Maddy?"

John lowers his gaze from Sherlock's figure when he realises that Mrs. Holmes is watching him closely. She isn't looking at him like she used to three months ago. Unable to take it no more, he gives them a smart military nod, and pats Mycroft on the shoulder, "I'll see you downstairs, alright My—Rudy?" He hastily corrects himself, gaining an elevated eyebrow and a deductive whisper of 'army' from Sherlock, and trots downstairs, collapsing at the last step. Mycroft is taking his time upstairs, and John is nothing if not grateful. He looks around at the banister where Sherlock usually used to hang his greatcoat after a particularly exhausting case when they couldn't make it to a diner and had to settle for takeout.

The echo of 'used to' is just too great over everything that moves through John.

He presses his finger to his eyes as he hears the snippets of violin in his memory and the lovely evening talks with Mrs. Hudson. His eyes rest on the bicycle stashed up against the wall. Her flat is probably empty now, and wiping the non-existent tears from his face, John stands up, smart and military posture and runs his eyes on the familiar door of 221A, now obscured by a curtain with "Hello Kitty" figures.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. John," Mycroft's voice wafts downstairs from the first floor landing, and his footsteps cease. He has seen John trying to see what they have made of 221A. He dips his head, now less self-conscious of his attire and presses a finger to his lip. "Sherlock mustn't know," he whispers.

Before John can ask what, Mycroft grimaces and utters under his breath what suspiciously sounds like "such monstrosities". He takes out a key and inserts it into the door.

John is overwhelmed. He is speechless. The Holmeses were really one of a kind.

Inside, there's a year worth of supply of the _Times_ paper of August 21st, 1986, a line of china doll figurines beside several broken ones (he suspects that Sherlock breaks one every day), a hidden supply of greasing oil and a tin box containing countless nuts and bolts, all of the bicycle whose manufacturing company was probably discontinued after 2000. There are other paraphernalia which John suspects keep Sherlock's life repeating over and over again, like the violin polish. He can almost imagine the entire Holmes family getting up in the night like shoemaker's elves, instead to reset everything that happened over the day, like diminishing the shine of the violin that Sherlock polishes so meticulously over the day, or keeping a few china doll figurine on the shelf for Sherlock to destroy the next day, or to replace and reset the chaos that Sherlock creates in his home or to destroy whatever their son makes in his free time.

It strikes him that even though Sherlock struggled to keep people away from himself for the rest of his life and called himself a high-functioning sociopath, he still has so many people to love him and take care of him so much that they're ready to go through the same thing and routine everyday.

"Sherlock fixes his bicycle everyday, like he did on August of 21st," Mycroft reveals, "Of course, Anthony dismantles it after Sherlock goes off for sleep."

"Anthony?"

"The boy who's playing me upstairs."

After sometime, Mycroft adds in an undertone, "The boy who has taken my place as Sherlock's brother." John simply nods. It's interesting to see how no lock can keep the ex-detective away but a simple "Hello Kitty" curtain can. Mycroft glances at him and realises his thought-process.

"It's not like Sherlock hasn't been in this room," he sighs, "Everytime he finds out that there's something odd because of these newspapers, he throws a temper tantrum. Once or twice he has even found out and we had to rush him to his doctor to explain him everything, but—you know..." he trails away.

"Every morning he wakes up, his memory resets and he has no recollection of whatever happened the previous day, whatsoever," John supplies blandly, crossing his hand over his chest, and looking at the hundreds of packs of violin strings lying there.

"Precisely. The most difficult part is that Sherlock is very observant. Even though he can't do deductions at this stage, it is fairly difficult to keep things from him... for example, this is a stage where he became obsessed with violin. My mother... she isn't a fan of sweet food, so Sherlock insists upon going to a cafe. Angelo is there..." Mycroft runs his fingers through several broken pieces of cutlery, "He makes sure that no one talks to him, or that no one sits near him."

"What about school?" John asks, and for a moment, Mycroft's face looks unreadable.

"We convince him everyday that we're on sightseeing for London. He loved London, even as a child—"

John sucks in a sharp breath, now angry instead of miserable, angry at not being allowed to be a part of Sherlock's life when so much has happened, however screwed up it is, "So, that's it then."

The impassive look on Mycroft's face is infuriating, "What's _what_ then, precisely?"

"Your grand plan," he gives a humourless laugh, "You're just happy that he wakes up every morning with his memory slate wiped clean so you don't have to _bother_—"

"John," he begins warningly, his eyes darting upwards on their own accord, "I think it's time for you to leave."

"What right do _you_ get, staying around him? I'm his family as much as you are—"

To his surprise, Mycroft grabs his arm, and drags him outside. His grip is surprisingly strong, almost bruising. He locks the door safely behind him as John carries on in muted tones, reminding Mycroft of the loopholes in his arrangement. He does not pause to think how the Holmeses hated to be notified of their shortcomings. He does not pause to think that Mycroft has never lowered himself to use physical force on any other human being.

Without another look at him, Mycroft saunters out of 221 and, hiding his face from the rest of the world, slips into the car, keeping the door open for John. A few seconds later, John follows him into it, and he drives away to wherever he can.

* * *

It's only after a decent change of clothes at his residence and relentless click of fingernails over the Blackberry by not-Anthea at John's side that he gets to see Mycroft again. He greets him with only a few words, "Get out of Sherlock's life."

John shakes his head, knowing fully well that Mycroft is capable of deporting him to any remote location in the world, "No."

For the first time, Mycroft makes a threat to John, telling him that he'll send a jet to transport him to the Himalayas or even the Bermuda Triangle, and he sees the terribly, _terribly _terrifying man Mycroft must be in front of the rest of the world. But John still shakes his head, "If this is why you've brought me here, I'd better go. I don't need permission from you to be in Sherlock's life."

"Your romantic and sexual needs will go unfulfilled, John. It's better for you to move on and find someone else," he warns.

The sound of someone else pierces through him. He wants to tell Mycroft that there's no one out there who would make him feel the way he does. And even if he isn't the same Sherlock, the only consolation he has is in knowing that he at least looks like Sherlock and still throws tantrums and sulks around to John like breadcrumbs to birds.

John knows, believes that deep down inside, through the layer of the regularity and routine, he is still the same Sherlock who shot bullets at the wall at half past one.

"I know," says he, feeling incredibly guilty for having kissed Sherlock on the first day. But then, Sherlock was always the curious one, wanting to experiment even at such young an age, "I'll be his nurse if it's as close as I can get."

Mycroft clenches his jaw, "What will you get out of this, except for sadness and pain?"

John shrugs, "You're making it sound like a burden, Mycroft. Is that what it is to you? Having to stay out of office for—I can't believe I'm having this conversation with you! Do you _even_ know how many people you've kept out of Sherlock's life?! There's Molly, there's Greg, even Sergeant Donovan and Anderson and countless people whose lives Sherlock touched and turned around. There's his whole Homeless Network, they're people too and they were loyal to him to a degree which you can't even contemplate, Mycroft! You're not the only one who's... affected..."

"John—"

"He's your brother, so what? That doesn't make his friends any less, does it? Or me? What if Mrs. Hudson was here too? Would you have kept _her_ out of his life too?!"

He stops, after screaming his heart out to him, to a person who did not deserve this. He knows how difficult he is making this for Mycroft, how much guilt he is placing on his shoulders. John might be selfish, he might be cruel but at this point he doesn't care. If there's one thing he knows in the world, it is that nothing, not even Mycroft Holmes can keep him out of Sherlock's life.

He feels tears brimming in his eyes for the first time in many months, and smartly turns away. If a morning date is all he can secure for himself, only to be forgotten about by the time the next day comes around, he'll take that chance.

And only heaven help him.

* * *

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